Issaquah family gets the most from their trip —

Many people travel to Africa to sightsee, or to go on safaris. But Issaquah’s Leist family had a different agenda.

The family explored parts of Africa in a Land Cruiser stocked with camping equipment this past summer and focused on the culture and the people.

Photos by the Leist FamilyMaggie, Scott and Anna Leist (from left) pretend to lift an enormous boulder over their heads in the Rhodes Matopos National Park in Zimbabwe. The rock formations are all over the southern part of the country. At top, a Zimbabwean man waves a pinkie finger that he had dipped in ink to show on Election Day last July that he had already voted in his nation’s presidential race.

Scott, Sally, Maggie (15) and Anna (12) Leist, along with some family friends, spent five weeks visiting Johannesburg, South Africa, the coast of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Kenya. About one-third of that time was spent driving from place to place and sleeping in tents on top of their rental car.